Monday, July 25, 2011

Caves and Orbiting Debris

This week I did a couple of small experiments with the terrain generation. One was to make the base density function (before applying noise) have a couple of concentric rings with space between. The noise function breaks through between the layers to create entrances to the caves. (Actually the base density function has a couple of built-in holes between the layers too.)

I also threw in some orbiting debris to see what it feels like to fly through it. At the moment it is just discs.

The terrain generation needs to have more smarts about area accessibility. I think I'm going to evaluate the density function onto a grid roughly the size of the rocket (maybe slightly larger). Then I can do evaluation at that level to figure out which areas are accessible, and add in terrain features. One of the things I want to do is generate a couple of background layers: one that gives caves a back wall, and then another layer or two that represent far-away mountains (and maybe move with some parallax).